Editorial: Time to scrap often-abused legislative scholarship program

As the state takes the ax to a scholarship program for low-income students, it is inexcusable that legislators continue to hand out their favorite perk, tuition waivers.

As the state takes the ax to a scholarship program for low-income students, it is inexcusable that legislators continue to hand out their favorite perk, tuition waivers.

The nonsurprise of the summer was when an Associated Press investigation found abuse in the waiver program, which allows each of the state’s 177 lawmakers to award two full tuition waivers annually to a state university. The schools have to absorb the cost, which last year alone was $12.8 million, the AP said.

With few restrictions on who gets the tuition waivers, the AP found that some lawmakers treat the children of their friends, relatives and campaign contributors to the scholarships. Same as it ever was.

More than 10 years ago, the Legislature tried to reform the program.

New rules required the names of recipients be made public. Some lawmakers, seeking to deflect criticism, set up independent scholarship committees to review applications. One year, a legislator turned over the tuition waivers to child protective services and a foster parents’ group so that they could award the scholarships to wards of the state.

Nice try, but it’s time for this costly program to go. The defenses for it have always been weak.

One lawmaker suggested politically active people were simply more aware of the waiver program. This is how we responded no less than 10 years ago: “The fact is, most Illinois taxpayers are aware of the program — they are aware that it is a form of political payola for which they foot the bill.”

This year, low-income college students got another jolt amid the most difficult economic times in decades. Students found out the state’s Monetary Award Program will run out of money for the spring semester. The General Assembly and the governor cut funding to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission by half in mid-July to balance the budget. The assistance commission funds the $380 million MAP program.

That reduction will leave 145,000 students in Illinois who receive the need-based help looking for some way — any way — to fund their educations.

At Northern Illinois University, the effect will be especially profound. The school receives the third-highest MAP funding of all universities in the state, said Inali Saghu, associate director for student financial aid. The average loss for the 5,699 students who receive MAP grants is $2,148, for a cumulative loss on campus of $12 million. “I don’t know if it’s quite sunk in, to tell you the truth,” Saghu said.

More than three-quarters of MAP recipients statewide have a household income of $40,000 or less a year. Some students may be forced to drop out.

Many recipients already are borrowing the maximum from the federally subsidized Stafford Loan Program. Their only recourse will be unsubsidized Stafford loans or high-interest private loans.

If they are “fortunate” enough to get these loans in a tight credit market, their cumulative increase in borrowing could reach $200 million because of the MAP reductions.

It’s bad enough already for students of all income levels. Two-thirds of students at U.S. colleges graduate with some loan debt. According to The Project on Student Debt, average debt levels for graduating seniors with student loans rose to $23,200 in 2008, up from $19,200 only four years before.

If lawmakers really wanted to help students, they’d stop spending their precious energy on the tuition waiver program or — better yet — call for its elimination. That would ease the burden on the public universities, which wouldn’t have to cover the free ride for many kids who are privileged already.

The schools could then pass the savings on to the kids who most need it.

In the short term, though, lawmakers must find a way to restore money to the MAP grant program for the spring semester.

College is tough enough and expensive enough without the state reneging on its promises, too.